Do students learn about Washington in British school?

[stratego]

Do student or puprils of British schools learn about America's General George Washington? If yes, what is said about him?

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

That criminal? Just kidding. I don't know about the British, but we learn almost no American history in Canada.

 

[WillJ]

No, and they gloss over Ghandi too.

but we learn almost no American history in Canada.

But it's still probably more than in America.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Actually, I heard Americans (who listen in school) actually learn quite a bit about their own history.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

We also do not study American history over here (Malaysia). Nor any foreign history.

We're brainwashed on local stuff...

 

[Sims2789]

...But it's still probably more than in America.

You should have taken Advanced Placement US History instead of so-called College Prepatory (aka preparing you to not go to college) US History.

Actually, I heard Americans (who listen in school) actually learn quite a bit about their own history.

A lot of it, at least when you are not in high school, is lies. They treat the Founding Fathers as heroes of freedom when in fact most of them were mere oligarchists. Also, they pretend that we were only imperialistic for a short stint in 1898. Ever heard of the Ohio War? It was one of the ones where we expanded into Indian lands. In one battle, we lost more men than the total number that we lost in the entire Revolution. We didn't lost that many again in an entire war (And this was only one battle.) until the Civil War. Shay's rebellion was actually an alliance between the farmers and workers of Massachusetts to overthrow the oligarchist government there. It almost worked. When it failed, the oligarchs decided that they needed a stronger form of government to stay in power, and that is how we got our Constitution.

 

[Elgalad]

This will come across as overly cynical, but it's the absolute truth. They did not teach American or World History in the schools I attended as a child. I remember <some> vague lessons taught in elementary school regarding the founding fathers and early Presidential heroes (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln), but these was mostly idealized and the actual facts were not emphasized. In high school, there were courses called History, but they were little more than Social Studies indoctrinations. Historical anecdotes were used to highlight and push the teachers' liberal agendas, but they were never presented simply as the important milestones and moments that have defined the progress of civilization. And many major events were neglected completely or belittled in importance if they did not support the underlying agenda. In case you were wondering, yes, I attended public school. I did find some historical subjects interesting on my own however, and engaged in independent reading; I found historical biographies particularly interesting.

But it was not until I attended college that I was able to experience fully the actual treasure that is the Historical Record. I've spoken with many folks older than myself from the Great Generation, and find the differences between their childhood education and mine simply amazing. History was once one of the most important subjects taught in primary and secondary schools. Today (apparently) it receives little more than lip service.

This sounds like an argument against public education, but it isn't. I strongly support government funded programs to educate the future of our country. If we are ever to continue to remain a powerful nation in the world however, changes Will have to be made. There is no question that on the subject of basic childhood education, the USA is falling further and further behind the rest of the world's developed nations.


-Elgalad

 

[CenturionV]

I learned next to nothing about history from my school (I was home schooled, and I got plenty of history stuff, I just quit, cuz I did not like to learn about history that way)

To me history is a hobby of sorts, at least a general knowledge of all history (for instance I could name very few dates, the main thing I focus on is ideas, movement of all of civilization, stuff like that)

I only in the very early grades was there anything about general world history, and it was only a bit. I had canadian history for a few grades, but I absolutely hated it, it was so darn BORING, so I just quit it and switched over to reading books and such on european/american history. I learned everything else from reading books, watching documentaries (I love them) and reading on the internet and watching the news (its suprising how much history you can learn on there, I've also started to move away from books and into internet reading more, I just find that I can get at what I'm interested quicker on here than I can spending hours flipping through book pages, plus the articles are often nice and short, leaving me more time for other things.)

 

[Masquerouge]

When I was an exchange student I took US history as one of my semester class. The first thing that made me twitch was that the teacher was also the track & field coach, and actually he was more the T&F coach than an history teacher. Well.
The second thing was that in the book were some inaccuracies, like "pizza was invented in the USA".
The third thing was when students presented their research to the class and were incorrect on some points, the teacher wasn't able to correct them, because it was not in the book. Like, "Spain is the biggest country in Europe".
And the last thing was the way tests were made. Multiple-choice questions. That does not make you think. I'll always remember one question, that gives an idea of the level of the class :
"When Christopher Columbus came to America, how did he call the people he discovered there ?
a. Native americans
b. Indians
c. Africans"



I made a 100 on that test, and the teacher/coach told me I was the first student ever to score a 100. No kidding !

But in US colleges you get far far far more advanced history classes. It's just that History is not a priority in High School...

 

[stratego]

Thanks for the responds guys. I'm sure somewhere hidden in one of those posts, there is an answer to my question.

 

[Stapel]

Well, I've never been to school in the UK, but here in NL we do learn about American history. But what we learn is not really much more than 'George Washington was the first president of the US', and if you're lucky 'He was the leader of the American Army, during the war of independence'.

The only mentioned, told and really kept in people's minds thing about the US is that New Amsterdam was a Dutch colony, taken (and renamed) by the Duke of York in 1664. To punish the English for this, our leader, Johan de Witt, ordered Admiral Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruyter to sail to England, where he captured the "Royal Charles" – the pride of the English navy.

I've written a small article on 'New Netherlands' for another thread:
Peter Minuit 1580-1641 was born in Wesel, which is in todays Germany. He started working for the Dutch West Indian Company (WIC) in 1625, and was appointed Governor of New Netherlands in 1626. He moved the WIC head quarters to southern Manhattan, and renamed the already founded (By Henry Hudson, at that moment working for the Dutch east Indian Company, searching for a faster way to south east Asia) settlement New Amsterdam (about 250 colonist at that time). He also officaly bought the already used land from the locals for the rather famous amount of 60 guilders!

Minuit was fired in 1632. Disappointed, he decided to work for Sweden and founded New Sweden in 1638 in on the Delaware, where he died in 1641.

In 1655, another Governor of New Netherlands, Peter Stuyvesant, conquered New Sweden. In 1664, King Charles II of England donated the lands (which where not his.....) to his brother, the Duke of York. Stuyvesant was persuaded not to defend it, as it was a lossed case anyway. On the 6th of september 1664, he officially surrendered The whole of New Netherlands (roughly New York State) to The Duke of York, who immediately renamed the settlement on southern Manhattan to New York.
This did lead however to the Second Anglo-Dutch War, from 1665 to 1667. This war was finally settled in june 1667 by The Dutch greatest admiral 'De Ruyter' who sailed to Chatham Dockyard, capturing the "Royal Charles" – the pride of the English navy, and sinking or burning three other great ships, - the "Royal James," "Royal Oake" and "Loyal London", and a number of others.

During the peace negotiotians, we got Surinam in return for New York.........
This is why we became European Champions in 1988 .

The Dutch colonists simply became inhabitants of British colony. The British new inahbitants thought the Dutch had funny names like Jan (John) or Kees (Cornelius) and for some reason decided to call any Dutchman a Jan-Kees, or rather Yankee.
How in the world this term is today used by those living south of the Potomac, for those fow live north of it, is un-known to me.

Sorry for this small step out.

On track again:
I do have a great book here: British History for Dummies. Probably not used in schools, but still. It is an extremely funny, yet (unbiased) book, imho.

A few quotes:

The first thing to get rid of is the idea that the American Revolutionary War was between the "Americans" and the "British". Eighteenth-century "Americans" regarded themselves as fully British, and the 13 colonies as extensions of England, so it was a real wrench to declare independence in 1776. Throughout the war, many "Americans" continued to regard themselves as British, while in Britain, there were many who were profoundly unhappy at going to war against fellow "Englishmen".

If you want the patriotic American angle on this, you can find plenty of films (Revolution with Al Pacino and The Patriot with Mel Gibson are just two examples) showing the Americans as stout-hearted, freedom-loving, and heroic, while the British appear as little better than red-coated Nazis, and if that's how you like your history then you'd better stick to teh films. The truth is a bit more messy.

On the Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party had very little to do with the tax on tea. The British East India Company was badly in the red, so London had given special permission for a consignment of Indian tea to sail straight for Boston without having to go via England. This made the tea cheaper, not dearer, but the local merchants didn't want to be undercut, so they arranged the famous raid. It looked very symbolic and patriotic, but really it was all about profits.

And, ok, on George Washington:

You may think this view of events is a bit unfair on Washington. Where is his famous crossing of the Delaware and his victory at Trenton? Well, yes he did launch a daring attack at trenton, New Jersey,at Christmas 1776 having crossed the DElaware river (though almost certainly not satnding up in the boat as you see in the famous painting, at least not if he had any sense). But the fact remains that despite his undoubted succes, Washington was much more succesful as an organiser of his army than as a filed commander. He was defeated far more often than he won; by contratst the British General Howe never lost a battle. Washington's greatest achievement was to hold the American army together, especially through the notorious winter of 1778, when it was camped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and drilled remorselessly into shape, until the British finally over-reached themselves.

 

[The Last Conformist]

American history got a pretty rough treatment back in my high school history classes, partly because it was considered of secondary importance to European history (well, not much to say; we're in Europe), partly because my class included a horde of educational failures who were allowed to drag down everyone else (well, they were the majority - I guess it's democratic) with the result that everything during ca 1700-1920 got less class time devoted to it than it should.

Of George Washington we learnt little more than that he was a rebel commander from Virginia who became the first President. That's still more than of any 19th C President save Lincoln.

 

[Stapel]

Of George Washington we learnt little more than that he was a rebel commander from Virginia who became the first President. That's still more than of any 19th C President save Lincoln.

Well, I also remember Thomas Jefferson.

 

[bobgote]

In Aus. we didn't really hear anything about washington. other than australian history (which was crap, they didn't cover any of our war history, or that of federation, just crap about the gold rush and bushrangers etc.), we were pretty euro-centric (and fair enough too). Covered stuff from ancient egypt (and shut up, it's euro if i want it to be), through greece, rome, to english history (which included the vikings and william the conqueror etc), leading up to the settlement of australia. covered a bit of asian history too. what was mentioned about the US is more stuff about what was going on when australia was settled, then timeframes for references of events happening here (like timeframe of the civil war etc).

The only US leader we probably heard about at all was lincoln, in relation to slavery etc.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Well, I also remember Thomas Jefferson.

If memory serves, he was mentioned as one of the Founding Fathers, but nothing of his more precise function or importance. As said, our course was pretty hurried and this point.

 

[Scuffer]

No, and they gloss over Ghandi too. But it's still probably more than in America.

I learnt abolsutely no American history whatsoever*, but I did learn lots about Ghandi**.

* It's never done me any harm
** It's never done me any good

 

[yoshi74]

I'am pretty scared by the fact that american pupils learn today almost no history. This explains a lot. To avoid the failures done in the past you have to know the past first.
We in germany didn't learned that much about america, mostly the part of the independece revolution. I spend most of my school time before the 1989 changes in the GDR and learned more about russian history than about american. At the beginning it was human history from the dawn of mankind, then greece and rome. And then the medieval. French revolution of 1789 and napoleon is also very importent. Indutriel revolution (especcialy in england) is a topic. But the most part was of course german history. Especially the 19th and 20th century.
History is seen as a very importent thing in education here. In fact even in high school, where pupils can choose their courses quite freely, everyone has to do history.

Its dangerous not to know from where you come. How can you know in which direction you head. Maybe you just repeat a sad part of history...

 

[Stapel]

I'am pretty scared by the fact that american pupils learn today almost no history.

That's not a fact, but something us Europeans like to think.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Well, several Americans on this board has said they learnt very little history in school.

The truth is, the US does not have a central educational bureaucracy, but leaves almost everything to the states and to the local school boards, with the results that quality and curricula vary wildly.

 

[Stapel]

Well, several Americans on this board has said they learnt very little history in school.

The truth is, the US does not have a central educational bureaucracy, but leaves almost everything to the states and to the local school boards, with the results that quality and curricula vary wildly.

That is true, but I am far from impressed by historical knowledge of most people here either.